Gen 8 Raid Question B120i and adding a drive

[HPMicro1]

I cant seem to get my head around my new microserver gen 8.  It has the stock raid controler B120i .  I installed 16 gig of ram and a single 2T western digital hard drive set as a raid 0.  I then installed esxi on a usb drive and created a datastore on the 2T as raid 0.  I initally set it up as a raid 1 but one of the drives ended up being defective so I used one drive and assumed I could add the other in the future and set it up as a raid 1.  I am sure you see my delima now.  

A little background, I am really new to the gen 8 as I have been using a hp ex495 home server for years.  I decided it was time to play a bit so I purchased the microserver gen 8.  My knowledge is ok with windows home server 2011 and I have a little knowedge of vmware but I am a purchasing manager and not an IT guy!   I got the vmware up and running with 2 windows 7 sessions and a 2008 r2 server.  I kinda want to keep the virtual machines as it took some time to set up.  Is there any way to add a drive to the raid without losing data even in a raid 0 mode.  Can I switch to a raid 1 without losing data?  What is the option if I purchase a P card can I do it then or will I still lose my data?  Should I just turn the power off the gen 8 and stick with my ex495 unti it give out and find another hobby??

[TVVJ]

Hi,

Before performing any step, please have complete reliable backup.

When only one disk is installed only RAID 0 is enabled by default.

When another drive is added, then the logical drive has to be deleted, using the Clear Configuration on the Array Configuration Utility, launching it by presseing F5 key while the HP Dynamic Smart Array B120i Controller initializes during POST.

While creating a new logical drive there are options to create RAID 0/RAID 1. Once the logical drive is created and detected by the operating system, then the datastore needs to be restored from the successfull backup.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Vijayasarathy

[Jimmy Vance]

The B120i is a Dynamic Smart Array cotnroller and needs a special driver for the RAID to function. The controller also does not have any cache memory so featrues such as array expansion and migration are not available.

If you are using the HP version of esxi you have the required hpvsa driver. Without the driver one or more disks are just treated as individual SATA drives.

You need the optional P222 Smart Array controller before you have the option to expand or migrate RAID levels